Top 50 John Masefield Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “I must go down to the sea again For the call of the running tide It’s a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.”

— John Masefield

2. “All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.”

— John Masefield

3. “The days that make us happy make us wise.”

— John Masefield

4. “There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.”

— John Masefield

5. “The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.”

— John Masefield

6. “In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.”

— John Masefield

7. “My road leads me seawards To the white dipping sails.”

— John Masefield

8. “And he who gives a child a treat Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven’s street, And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom come, And she who gives a baby birth Brings Saviour Christ again to Earth.”

— John Masefield

9. “Life is a long headache in a noisy street.”

— John Masefield

10. “I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain.”

— John Masefield

11. “Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain, And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.”

— John Masefield

12. “Man’s body is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagination has made him remarkable.”

— John Masefield

13. “God warms his hands at man’s heart when he prays.”

— John Masefield

14. “Men in a ship are always looking up, and men ashore are usually looking down.”

— John Masefield

15. “Love is a flame to set the will on fire.”

— John Masefield

16. “Life, a beauty chased by tragic laughter.”

— John Masefield

17. “In the dark room where I began My mother’s life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her.”

— John Masefield

18. “I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.”

— John Masefield

19. “Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a ship of Truth In which his soul may sail- Sail on the sea of death. For death takes toll Of beauty, courage, youth, Of all but Truth.”

— John Masefield

20. “The distant soul can shake the distant friend’s soul and make the longing felt, over untold miles.”

— John Masefield

21. “O lovely lily clean, O lily springing green, O lily bursting white, Dear lily of delight, Spring in my heart agen That I may flower to men.”

— John Masefield

22. “The corn that makes the holy bread By which the soul of man is fed, The holy bread, the food unpriced, Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.”

— John Masefield

23. “The luck will alter and the star will rise.”

— John Masefield

24. “Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French.”

— John Masefield

25. “Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.”

— John Masefield

26. “Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.”

— John Masefield

27. “What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt Held in cohesion by unresting cells, Which work they know not why, which never halt, Myself unwitting where their Master dwells?”

— John Masefield

28. “Heaven to me’s a fair blue stretch of sky, Earth’s jest a dusty road.”

— John Masefield

29. “But he has gone, A nation’s memory and veneration, Among the radiant, ever venturing on, Somewhere, with morning, as such spirits will.”

— John Masefield

30. “Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth.”

— John Masefield

31. “To most of us the future seems unsure. But then it always has been; and we who have seen great changes must have great hopes.”

— John Masefield

32. “Off Cape Horn there are but two kinds of weather, neither one of them a pleasant kind.”

— John Masefield

33. “Life’s battle is a conquest for the strong; The meaning shows in the defeated thing.”

— John Masefield

34. “I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.”

— John Masefield

35. “His face was filled with broken commandments.”

— John Masefield

36. “Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.”

— John Masefield

37. “Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.”

— John Masefield

38. “The wolves are running.”

— John Masefield

39. “But Time and Tide and Buttered Eggs wait for no man.”

— John Masefield

40. “God dropped a spark down into everyone, And if we find and fan it to a blaze, It’ll spring up and glow, like – like the sun, And light the wandering out of stony ways.”

— John Masefield

41. “Success is the brand on the brow of the man who aimed too low.”

— John Masefield

42. “Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it.”

— John Masefield

43. “In the power and splendor of the universe, inspiration waits for the millions to come. Man has only to strive for it. Poems greater than the Iliad, plays greater than Macbeth, stories more engaging than Don Quixote await their seeker and finder.”

— John Masefield

44. “And may we find when ended is the page, Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.”

— John Masefield

45. “A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.”

— John Masefield

46. “Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.”

— John Masefield

47. “Beauty you lifted up my sleeping eye And filled my heart with longing with a look.”

— John Masefield

48. “All the great things of life are swiftly done, Creation, death, and love the double gate. However much we dawdle in the sun We have to hurry at the touch of Fate.”

— John Masefield

49. “The social states of human kinds Are made by multitudes of minds, And after multitudes of years A little human growth appears Worth having, even to the soul Who sees most plain it’s not the whole.”

— John Masefield

50. “It is too maddening. I’ve got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I’ll have to speak three times, and then I’ll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?”

— John Masefield